Airline to Protein Skimmer???

[Nick Rose]

I've been reading how fellow reefers have attached a airline to their skimmer to increase the Ph. How would I do that? Can I just attach a airline to the inlet line of the silencer on the Quantum Nyos Skimmer? This is the water parameters 1.025, Ca 415, Mag 1305, KH 8, PO&NO 0, PH during the winter is 7.6, during warmer weather its between 8-8.1. The corals seem happy. I'm worried of chasing Ph and messing up my dads tank.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Correct get tubing the appropriate size to fit over the nipple on your silencer, and then run that tube outdoors

 

[Mical]

What are you measuring PH with? That low of PH IMO corals wouldn't be happy. And yes that is where you would add an air line.

 

[Nick Rose]

I don't know the name of the electronic probe but its attached to the Digital Aquatics controller. Here is a picture of the tank.

 

[Mical]

Nice looking tank. When was the last time the probe was calibrated? I suspect the probe is slowly wearing out throwing off PH readings. Either way adding fresh air to your skimmer is a good thing.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I don't know the name of the electronic probe but its attached to the Digital Aquatics controller. Here is a picture of the tank.

That is quite the GSP garden, I love it!

 

[wesman42]

That is quite the GSP garden, I love it!

So do I [emoji451][emoji451][emoji451]


I kinda want to start a softie tank with a ton of GSP and Xenia running rampant.

 

[Nick Rose]

We have a liquid PH test that I just used and it’s giving that same reading. I also took a cup of the water outside and stirred it for 3min. The PH went up by .10.

 

[Mical]

I would add the airline and see what happens over a week or so. I had a similar issue with low PH (not 7.6) and started adding Kalk to my auto top offs. That took some experimenting but both of my tanks average 8.18 these days.

 

[SPR1968]

My pH in winter and summer is virtually the same as yours, and months ago I started looking into it, and decided the % difference is minimal, everything is alive, corals are glowing, so I would leave it well alone. Your tank looks beautiful especially the GSP.

You can certainly attach the air hose to the skimmer as your suggest and ideally have the air inlet hose outdoors, and you could also look into CO2 scrubbers (I went through all this myself! Lol). These methods will raise pH a little

Also remember margins of error in the test kits or monitors

Below is my pH graph from Apex. Does my tank suffer at all, look on my build thread in the link below to see if your concerned.

 

[Water Dog]

Bear in mind, if you’re running your skimmer airline outside, it may be a good idea to use a larger diameter tubing for most of the run to the outside, then use a reducing barb to attach the airline of the skimmer.

 

[Nick Rose]

Thanks for all the feedback. I had a airpump laying around so I have that outside with the airline running to the skimmer.This will be temporary to see how it affects the PH. Before I started this morning the PH was at 7.56 and for the past hour or two it has slowly raised to 7.69. I will see how high it gets. While I was doing this I noticed that the inlet pipe in the silencer was clogged some how, so I cleaned it. If the sump light is on during the day and off during the night would that also cause the PH to be off. With all the reading I have seen I told my dad we should change the sump light schedule so its a reverse light period from the main tank.

 

[Nick Rose]

As of today its been 4 days and when the lights turn on the PH slowly rises from 7.60 to 7.70. Other then getting a co2 scrubber what else could i do? The water flow is good. The outlets that bring the water back into the tank breaks the surface nicely. Would decreasing this lower the PH? I thought I had seen a PH thread here that mentioned lowering the flow.

 

[WetPringleChip]

Ever figure out the ph issue? Im about to run my nano hob skimmer with an airline across my room and out the window. Was hoping this would fix my issues as i have already increased my DKh from 9 to 10 and shooting for maybe 11. My old ph would bottom out at 7.43 at the end of night. Now im bottoming at around 7.67 so im hoping this fixes it and its just a CO2 build up in my house